Revolut Business Overview
Like their personal offering, the Revolut Business offering is tiered - giving more access to features, the more you pay.
In reality, the basic account offers very little that a business would want - so having a monthly fee, compared to the likes of the Wise business account which has both no monthly fee and a better exchange rate, puts Revolut Business at a huge competitive disadvantage. Also, what could be considered as a prime market for Revolut Business - freelancers - there is no support. Sole traders cannot sign up for a Revolut Business account.
Features | Insight |
---|---|
Monthly Fee | $0-$119 |
Exchange rate | From 0.5% |
Transfer fees | $0 |
Multi-currency account | 2 |
Batch payments | ✅ Up to 1,000 batch payments |
Expense management | ✅ Up to 200 virtual cards means expenses can be managed en masse |
Pay invoices | ✅ |
Receive payments | ✅ |
Marketplace integration | ❌ |
API options | ✅ |
Manage Payroll | ✅ |
ATM Access | ✅ |
Forward Contracts | ❌ |
Scoring Revolut Business
- Supports over 25 currencies for holding
- A Slack integration that connects payments to multiple team members
- Access to physical cards and up to 200 virtual cards at no cost
- Most key business features aren’t offered at the basic level so have a monthly fee attached
- Even at paid levels, there is no account management
- Cannot not be opened in Canada or New Zealand
Product offering
Revolut Business offers a range of products, these should be seen as online only and self serve. They include a multi-currency account, which has just GBP and USD local details, but can access additional currencies with a conversion fee.
Fees and rates
Transfer speed
Transfer limits
Ease of use
Safety and trust
Customer feedback
Online review software is unreliable because it averages out scoring across a company, for decades at a time. To give a clear view of how Revolut Business is actually performing now, we analysed online review scores from a number of different sources, specifically for the business offering. This chart shows an average score out of 5, per month, since the start of 2023.
Revolut Business multi-currency accounts
When using Revolut Business the options on the surface are decent, although there are huge limitations compared to other providers in terms of transfer amounts and fees. The Revolut Business account is also different from the Revolut Freelancer account. Sole traders cannot access the Business account at any level.
Provider
Supported local accounts and holding currencies
Revolut Business allows you to hold 25 currencies within the account, this includes all of the expected currencies like EUR and GBP. However, this works differently to the likes of Wise or Sokin, where you would get local account details with business accounts. With Revolut Business, businesses are limited to two local accounts. These are GBP and USD. Business do get access to SWIFT details for international payments.
This might not be a huge deal breaker for all businesses, but it should be noted.
Country | Local account details |
---|---|
United States | Account number, ACH routing number, Wire routing number |
UK | Sort code, Account number |
This being said you can receive into the account and convert to USD after receipt, using the interbank rate. You can also hold the currency as well.
This has an additional 1% charge at weekends:
The full list of supported currencies you can hold is:
North America:
USD, CAD, MXN
Europe:
Oceania:
Asia:
Account limits
Limits on transfers with Revolut Business can result in costs stacking up over time. There are no fees on just 5 international transfers when paying $30 a month for the Grow account. These come with a mid-market exchange rate up to $10,000 (across one or all of the transfers - whichever comes first).
Basic | Grow | Scale | Enterprise | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Price (monthly) | $0 | From $30 | From $119 | Custom |
No-fee International Transfers | 0 | 5 | 25 | Custom |
No-fee Local Transfers | 5 | 100 | 1,000 | Custom |
Currency Exchange at Mid-market Rate | $1,000 | $10,000 | $50,000 | Custom |
For comparison Wise Business offers the mid-market rate and a fee of 0.33% on all transfers. They also have no monthly fee associated to the account.
Depending on your spend, using the Grow account as an example:
Scenario | Revolut Business Cost* | Wise Business Cost |
---|---|---|
Transfer $5,000 to EUR in 1 transaction | $30 | $16.50 |
Transfer $20,000 to EUR over 5 transactions | $130 | $66 |
*includes monthly fee
Actual limits on transfers per day are limited to $175,000 outbound, and $1 million inbound. The limit on the amount of cash in the account is $10 million. However, Revolut Business says this can be increased on a case by case basis. For comparison, Wise Business allows up to $50 million in transfers per day.
Limit type | Limit |
---|---|
Outbound payments | $175,000 |
Inbound payments | $1 million |
This isn’t to say Revolut Business is without merits, but probably is more suited to new businesses looking to manage their cash in a similar way to personal funds.
Spending and ATM withdrawal limits
ATM withdrawals are charged at 2% of withdrawal amounts across all four tiers of a Revolut Business account - again, at $119 per month for the Scale option, this should be much lower.
Withdrawal limits on the other hand are quite high at $3,750, so if your business relies on cash - it could be a good option. Just be prepared to pay an excess to access the cash.
Cards and virtual cards
Each member of the team can have up to 3 cards and 200 virtual cards for expense management, even on a basic account level. This is pretty strong in terms of offering when you consider Wise Business only offers the one and is currently not offering cards in the US at the time of writing.
Spending internationally is charged at the same rate as sending money however, so limits are lower and with a large network of employees you could hit the upper limits quite easily on spending. Once you stop paying the mid-market rate and start paying the Revolut Business exchange rate of between 0.7-1.5%, costs can mount.
All card fees are $0 for the first cards, then $4.99 for any replacement cards. This is about the standard for the industry.
Expense management
Expense approval and payment approval are not available on the basic plan for Revolut Business. So, expect to pay at least $30 a month to access this feature. This feels little off when you consider that the basic account can have up to 200 virtual cards attached to it and when expense approval comes as a standard feature in Wise Business.
With higher tiered accounts you do get expense management included and seems to work well in that you can spend, photograph and submit receipts for expenses. For payment approvals this is similar on higher tiered accounts.
There’s not too much to say here in terms of offering, but the fact this isn’t offering as standard is definitely a weak point.
Sending and receiving payments
Sending and receiving payments is one of Revolut Business’ USPs, although these are limited before you start to hit higher charges.
COST TYPE | AMOUNT |
---|---|
Exchange rate | Averages 1% after limits hit |
Fees | Averages 1% after limits hit |
This is similar to the personal accounts on offer. The limit of $1,000 before you pay above the mid-market rate is uncompetitive against the likes of Wise Business, where the rate stays at the mid-market rate regardless of the amount. Particularly, when you get zero no fee international transfers included.
For comparison beyond this, even using the $30 per month Grow account and increasing the limit you get the mid-market rate to $10,000 - bigger transfers still come in much higher than this.
You also will only receive 5 fee free international transfers. On the $119 account this fee free option is 25 transfers and up to $50,000. This level may be suitable for SMEs, but with 10 overseas staff - this limit is pretty much hit every month before invoicing and any other costs are taken into account.
Sending batch or mass payments
Batch payment limit | 1,000 recipients |
Batch and mass payments are not included in the basic account with Revolut Business. They are however included in all the other tiers. As with Wise Business, you can make up to 1,000 individual transactions in a bulk payment and there’s a Business API and integrations included here.
Compared to others, the guidance from Revolut Business on this is lacking however, and with the lack of account manager - you may find simpler solutions (like Wise Business) or more hands on options (like Airwallex) are a better option.
Sending through an integration
Receiving payments
Interest rates
On Revolut Business it is possible to earn interest on your balance - at the time of writing this is 3.51%, although this could change over time.
CURRENCY | REVOLUT BUSINESS INTEREST RATE (USD) | Limit |
---|---|---|
Enterprise Plan | 3.51% | $2 million |
Scale Plan | 2.75% | $1 million |
Grow Plan | 2.25% | $500,000 |
There are limits to this as well. As with everything on Revolut Business - this 3.51% is only available on the enterprise plan - limited at $2 million. For the Basic plan it’s not really clear what rate you would get. For the Grow and Scale plans, it’s 2.25% on a maximum $500,000 and 2.75% on a maximum $1 million respectively.
This is slightly counter intuitive, as you have to pay to access the best rates. Whilst at higher amounts - say on $1 million at 2.75%, you would make this money back in interest, at lower amounts of cash reserves you wouldn’t.
Again, as a comparison Wise Business offers 4.85% on USD balances.
Exchange rates alerts and contracts
Revolut Business offers limit and stop orders on paid plans only. These options are great for regular payments but slightly add odds with the limit on payments of $10,000 to $50,000 on the Grow and Scale plans. On Enterprise plans it is possible to agree a higher level.
With a smaller limit on mid-market rate payments vs the likes of Wise Business (which is always the mid-market rate), regular or scheduled payments - even with a rate locked in - may end up being worse. Although, for one off or semi-regular payments, or payments of small amounts, it is useful to have.
Locking in is pretty simple as well - this can be done when getting rates and cost for a transaction (or a batch payment). Once agree, the transfer can be made until the rate expires. After this point, you will pay the mid-market rate (if you are under the Revolut Payment threshold) or a high Revolut Business rate (if you have surpassed the threshold).
Costs per plan
Feature | Basic | Grow | Scale | Enterprise |
---|---|---|---|---|
Price (monthly) | $0 | From $30 | From $119 | Custom |
No-fee International Transfers | 0 | 5 | 25 | Custom |
No-fee Local Transfers | 5 | 100 | 1,000 | Custom |
Currency Exchange at Mid-market Rate | $1,000 | $10,000 | $50,000 | Custom |
Paid vs basic features
Available on all plans
Integrations
Integrations and access between apps is where Revolut Business thrives and is one of the reasons it’s recommended for smaller businesses with potentially fewer payments, but in need of a level of convenience.
So, the usual Xero, Sage and QuickBooks are on offer - but there’s also a level of automation that is helpful.
In particular, the account can be integrated with Slack - so incoming and outgoing payment requests can enter an every day feed.
There’s a couple more options like this, including Zapier, which then extends integrations further.
The need (and benefit) of having a nice batch of app integrations is potentially objective to the business you are in, but it is a nice feature if you need it.
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Fees and rates when using Revolut Business
Barring the already covered there’s a few fees to be aware of when using Revolut Business.
In particular, the cost of ATM use and lack of benefits on a basic account should be noted. As Wise Business offers most of these within its free account, we’ve initially used this data. Although, the detail behind the other tiers can be found in the table at the top of the page.
Provider
Service | Revolut |
---|---|
Domestic Transfers | 5 free, $5 each additional |
International Transfers | From 0 free, $5 each additional |
Currency Conversion Fee | 0.6% within market hours, 1% outside |
Receiving Fee | Free local |
Card Payments | 2% on all withdrawals |
Monthly Fee | from free to $119 (or custom) |
Setup Fee | None |
Payment Tracking | Included |
Mass Payout | Only in paid plans |
Accounting Integrations | Sage, Slack, QuickBooks, Xero |
Additional Fees | Replacement cards at $4 |
Limit and stop loss orders
In some cases, fees and rates can be reduced by using limit and stop loss orders. These are available on plans starting at $30 a month, so businesses making regular payments can take advantage.
Be aware that if you use these orders, you are still adding to your overall sent amount. So if you lock in a mid-market rate on $11,000 worth of transactions on the Grow account (where you only receive the mid-market rate up to $10,000), $1,000 of this will be on a different rate. Although, this rate will also be guaranteed for the time frame agreed.
If this feels a little confusing, it’s because it is. Revolut Business is positioned to offer a service based on its brand, but Wise Business feels more like it is being offered from an angle of international transfers for business. For this reason, Wise Business just feels a little more cohesive, and useful, than Revolut Business. This is the same from a freelance level up to an enterprise one.
Regular and batch payments
Revolut Business actually calls batch payments, bulk payments, and they are only possible to do on paid accounts. Again, for regular payments - particularly where staff are located overseas - business are likely to hit the mid-market rate limits very quickly. For enterprise level clients, this may be negotiable - but with being on a custom solution, it’s likely you will also feel this within the custom pricing offered.
For regular transfers the basic account will leave a lot to be desired, and to avoid hitting limits on payments it might be better to do more larger, infrequent transfers over the course of the month.
Speed of transfers with Revolut Business
Speed is one of the better elements of the Revolut Business offering. Payments are usually within a few hours, but can be up to 2 days. When testing, we found most to be at the quicker end.
This is similar to being paid through Revolut Business as well.
Provider
In both paying and making payments all of the bigger currencies performed well - transfers to and from EUR, GBP, USD, CAD and AUD were all received within a couple of hours.
When using accounting software through Revolut Business, transactions weren’t any longer and syncing was normally complete within a couple of hours.
Revolut Business service and account management
Of any of the Revolut Business tiers, the only one with an account manager is the enterprise level. This custom solution will demand a custom approach, so we can see why it’s offered here.
Barring the enterprise level, support is largely online based. Alongside Wise Business, Revolut Business is one the only companies that does not offer an account contact as standard. This online only approach suits some people, and if SMEs in particular are happy to chip away at getting setup themselves, you do not miss much.
Further, integrations and the platform itself work well. So there isn’t always a need for hands on management.
Support itself is offered in a couple of different ways:
Online help
Availability | 24/7 |
Languages | Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, Spanish, Swedish |
Revolut Business has its own help center, designed to answer the most common questions and issues around the account. This includes links in places to a lot of legal documentation and agreements if you need them.
As with any of these - we found it to be quite surface level in places and will help with basic troubleshooting.
In-app support
Availability | 24/7 |
Languages | Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, Spanish, Swedish |
Response Times | Automated immediate, contact within around 30 minutes |
For specific account queries and issues, Revolut Business offers in-app support. This also works if logged in on desktop.
Help here is relatively quick and support initially is in the form of automation that takes from the help center. After this, you will get live support.
Email or phone support
Email or phone support isn’t really listed as standard for Revolut Business, and getting access to this support felt difficult.
The only phone support really offered is an automated number to cancel a card. A generic support email will allow you to reset an account. There’s a specific point on the email support page as well, to NOT request buy or sell orders, or place any other instructions on the account. This feels like Revolut saying, do not contact us for help.
Using Revolut Business
Revolut Business is a fintech company offering business multi-currency accounts and by these means, is pretty simple to use and easy to navigate.
Doing business, sending payments and integrating apps are easy within the app.
We tested the following functionality:
Invoicing
Integrations
Setting employees, roles and permissions
Paying money in and withdrawing money
Eligibility and sign up
Initially you will need to click to sign up online
Confirm your account details
Verify and bank
Safety and regulation
Provider
Regulation
Revolut Business operates as a bank and is regulated in the US by FDIC and funds will be held with the Metropolitan Commercial Bank.
As such, business funds are protected for up to $250,000. For some businesses with higher cash flow, this might feel like a limitation.
In other countries regulation is similar, although in the UK the regulation from the FSCS (Financial Services Compensation Scheme) does not cover online only accounts, so no protection is offered in the event the account fails in the UK.
Safety
Revolut Business offers elements like two-factor login, encryption and fraud prevention methods on payments. There is also a process for users to submit bugs and flaws that can be investigated further.
Not keen on Revolut Business?
If you are unsure of whether Revolut Business is for you, here's some alternatives - many of these have no monthly fees or limits rates.
Other review scores
Customer feedback and user reviews are mixed. On TrustPilot the overall score from 154,000 reviews is 4.1, with ease of use a positive but ever changing benefits (or removal of benefits) highlighting as one of the downsides of paid accounts. Elsewhere, customer service - as highlighted above - is listed as a gripe.
The positives here are international use on cards and competitive rates at low amounts.
Reviews.com shows a different story, rating the company 1.2 out of 5 - although this is from just 650 reviews. A lot of the issues here arise from customer service, and more recently payment times moving from minutes to days for some regular transactions.
Overall, Revolut Business offering (at least in the eyes of its customers) is getting worse.